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Crazyhouse. A two-player version of Bughouse. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Johnny Luken wrote on Thu, May 7, 2015 01:37 PM UTC:Poor ★
A classic example of a game whose popularity exceeds its actual quality.

The addition of conversion to chess is a worthwhile pursuit, but the brainless mechanic of dropping a piece wherever you want, is the least imaginitive possible implementation.

More specifically the freedom to drop pieces produces a higher level of convergence in the game tree versus more restricted implementations, reducing strategic connotations of moves. Piece drops in Crazyhouse are always done on primitive grounds, check blocks, pawn promotion threat etc.

That it merely borrows this from Shogi is not a defense; those games are 1) somewhat aged, 2) purposely designed towards such a mechanic.

Were Chess capture performed by nonreplacement, pieces could simply be converted immediately and this would likely work well.

As it is, I believe there are two main implementations.

1. allow pieces of like colour to occupy common space with immediate conversion. This is not satisfactory as it simply allows the second player in a trade cycle to gain all the pieces.

2. my proposition. Captured piece is immediately converted, continues to occupy its cell and can be played on as usual. However it may not be captured at this point, and may not capture on its first move after conversion. 

On playtesting this idea, I further propose that converted piece must wait one turn before being played into a game-this avoids attritional cycles with little change to the board.